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Re: OT: Punctuation

From:Tristan McLeay <zsau@...>
Date:Saturday, January 17, 2004, 2:06
On Sat, 17 Jan 2004, Trebor Jung wrote:

> I have a few questions on punctuation: > > In different posts, I notice the following: > My name is... > My name is ... > My name is . . . > Is it a matter of choice, or are there rules governing spacing and > punctuation...
In variable-width fonts, an ellipsis is not spaced the same as three fullstops placed after each other. Because of this, for some reason some people put spaces between them (which is too large a space at least in Times Roman, Palatino and Computer Modern Roman---it's about half-way between). Personally, I think it looks bad in fixed-width font (and even worse in variable-width ones, but no worse than having three dots), but that's just my opinion. (When using Word, it auto-corrects three dots into an ellipsis. In (La)TeX, typing \dots gets you an ellipsis.) As to whether there's a space before it, my guideline is that if it's the end of a sentence, because the first one serves as a fullstop, put it against the text, otherwise, have a space, hence: I dunno ... I think he left... -- Tristan

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Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>